Sobriety
by palomino333
Summary: "For as much as he hated Jane Doe, he was, and always would be, his friend." Demoman finds that not all of his answers lie at the bottom of a bottle. One-shot.


It's been a while since I've written a Team Fortress 2 fanfic. I wrote this while I was in Williamsburg. What is it with me and writing TF2 fanfiction on vacation?

I know I say this every time I post fanfiction for this fandom, but this shares the same universe as Mother Fox and all following fanfiction, although the there is no defined timeline. This particular fanfic is taking place at the end of the Meet the Soldier video.

In my personal headcanon, each map on TF2 is inhabited by different RED and BLU teams, who occasionally switch off in accordance with different types of battles, while maintaining permanent residence at their original locations unless dictated otherwise. The idea came from the fact that I have seen other fanfiction writers depicting the teams traveling between different maps (most notably Coldfront) for battle on board the train. Whether this is correct or incorrect in actual canon, I am not sure.

I own nothing.

* * *

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!"

"He's at it again?" Engineer asked as he strode up to stand beside Demoman.

The Scotsman nodded once before taking a swig of his bottle of scrumpy. Propping his elbow up on the rail of the balcony, he allowed his other arm to dangle, the bottle hanging. "Aye, he's bloody lost it this time."

Engie shook his head as he watched Soldier rant and rave at the gibbed heads. "Well, it'll keep him busy for a while."

"Someone's finally listening to him," Demoman muttered.

"Including you?" Engineer asked.

He shrugged in response. "Not so much listening as enjoying the show."

The visible bitterness in his voice said otherwise.

Demoman's attempt to lift up the bottle again resulted in his wrist painfully colliding with the bar.

He gasped and cursed, the bottle gripped tight as he waved his wrist out.

"Ouch," Engineer observed sympathetically, "How much have you been drinking, anyway?"

Another shrug.

Pointing a finger to Demoman's left, the Texan offered, "Looks like three bottles next to you."

Following the finger, Demoman found his words to be true, with three empties, one broken quite violently in half, lying on the concrete.

He remembered shattering the first, but he didn't remember drinking the other two that followed.

"Your point?" He pressed, glaring at Engineer.

Holding up his hands before him, the Southerner replied quickly, "Didn't mean you any harm."

He snorted. "I'm drunk, not stupid. Out with it."

When Engie opened his mouth, Demoman quickly cut him off. "And if you're trying to lecture me about me drinking, I'll beat ye so hard that not even your mother will recognize ye!" A loud belch issued from him right after.

Engineer shook his head. "No sir. I was actually gonna invite you in to celebrate," he continued, "We broke our three-day losing streak, after all, and it beats the hell out of drinking alone."

After taking a generous swig, Demoman replied, "Wouldn't have happened if we had our shit together."

"I'd be surprised if we did," Engie murmured, "We have a lot of good days, but if we had no bad days, we wouldn't be living here anymore."

Demoman laughed. "Yer a bloody coward like the rest of us! Can't say I blame ye, though. 2Fort's too endearing."

Once a team had exceeded its expectations for a given area, it was transferred to a far more challenging one. True, these current RED and BLU teams occasionally went away for battles against each other, much like today, but those areas were also inhabited full time by the other teams.

"Amen to that," Engineer declared before asking, "Aw come on, is he really doing that?"

Demoman simply shook his head in disgust.

One of the heads had fallen to the ground, and Soldier was down on his belly to speak on its level. Shortly after, he yanked the head up by the hair, and screamed in its face for falling.

The Texan slapped the rail once. "I think I've seen enough."

Turning, he strode away from Demoman.

"Engie!"

He halted in his tracks at the Scotsman's voice, and turned back. "Yeah?"

"I'll be down later."

Nodding, he took his leave.

Demoman watched for a moment longer before hurling the bottle over the edge to shatter on the ground below.

It wasn't to say he hadn't anticipated Soldier's defacement of the enemy's corpses in this way, especially considering the brutality of the battle. Still, there was a reason why no one else was watching. Killing a man was one thing in itself, and this was completely another. However, debating the philosophy of those two items was best saved for home, where his clarity lay. He was too drunk for this.

Medic did worse than this man to prisoners, but at least he kept his sessions confined to the medical bay. Soldier, on the other hand, simply had no class.

Demoman rubbed his eyes. That made him classless as well, as he had assisted this "activity."

Jane's head had landed on top of a bridge after he had been blown to pieces by his former friend's sticky bombs. Demoman had claimed it after the conclusion of the battle. The RED Soldier had been busying himself with collecting the heads of the fallen team, even going so far as decapitating their corpses with his shovel.

Demoman had thrown the BLU Soldier's head down at him from the bridge, exclaiming, "The bastard's all yours!"

Watching this now, he didn't feel that same sense of jubilation in being able to humiliate Jane further. This was neither funny nor fulfilling. If anything, he guilty.

True, the feud among himself and the enemy Soldier was one of extreme spite and hate over Jane betraying him, but the truth of the matter was that the fight would not have been so violent, if it had not been for their prior friendship.

Demoman let out a sigh before rising to head off the platform, drawing his grenade launcher as he did so. As hard as it was to stomach the truth, he couldn't deny that he was soft underneath it all.

RED Soldier jerked, and spun around at the sound of Demoman's footsteps. "You expect to get the drop on me, maggot? I have eyes out the back of my head!"

He tapped the back of his helmet for emphasis.

"If so, maybe that's compensation for the fact that ye can't see your own hand in front of your damn face!" Demoman snapped.

Soldier's boots crushed the sand as he stomped toward him. "Look who's talking, cyclops! At least I have the decency to keep both of my God-given eyeballs in my head!"

Demoman laughed in response, taunting, "That's an accomplishment? You're nothing more than a child playacting hero, and you'll die like one! While the eight of us spill our blood on the battlefield, ye hide in your foxhole, twiddling your thumbs!"

That did it. Soldier dashed at him, his hands outstretched to strangle him, and screeching that his teammate was nothing more than a filthy whore in a dress. The distraction had worked.

Demoman fired a single shot from the launcher, and the grenade bounced and rolled past Soldier before coming to a step before the heads.

Soldier had been a few feet from him when the explosion sent up a burst of bright orange and yellow, contrasted by a short billow of gray smoke. The ground shook momentarily. The heads became nothing more than a bloody mess, and the fence upon which they had stood was blown apart.

The helmeted man jumped at the noise, spinning around in surprise.

He darted back in the direction he had come, screaming vulgar words at the top of his lungs at the scorch mark in the ground.

Demoman turned and walked away, gripping the launcher more tightly than necessary.

Well, that was that.

For as pleasing as Engineer's invitation was, it reminded him of the empty glasses of hard liquor he had downed at bars alone on several nights, all the while occasionally throwing glances at the door to see if he could spot a familiar blue coat.

It was miserable, but true. For as much as he hated Jane Doe, he was, and always would be, his friend. He would enjoy celebrating with his team, but one drink would always be taken alone.


End file.
